The latest Harvard/Harris poll has a lot to digest outside of the top-line numbers, much of it news that Democrats won’t want to hear, but by no means all of it good for their Republican opponents. Standard cautions about over-interpreting a single poll apply. On the voters’ views of our leaders:
- Sixty percent have doubts about Joe Biden’s mental fitness for the job, 64 percent think he is too old for the job, 71 percent think he shouldn’t run again, and only 30 percent of Democratic voters would renominate him given a list of other choices.
- The poll tested the favorability of Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders, Mike Pence, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Ted Cruz, Hillary Clinton, Ron DeSantis, Nancy Pelosi, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Mike Pompeo, Chuck Schumer, Mitch McConnell, Joe Manchin, Tim Scott, Antony Blinken, Kyrsten Sinema, and Vladimir Putin. Unsurprisingly, Putin’s net favorability of -66 was the lowest, and Pelosi (-27) and McConnell (-22) were the two lowest among Americans. Trump had the highest favorability (42 percent) but, aside from Putin, only Pelosi (56 percent), Biden (54 percent), and Hillary (53 percent) had higher unfavorable ratings than Trump’s 50 percent. Sixty-one percent say Trump should not run again.
- Only two of the people on that list had a net favorable rating: Ron DeSantis (+6, at 34 percent favorable and 28 percent unfavorable), and Tim Scott (+3). Bear that in mind for 2024. Yet, GOP voters still favor Trump to DeSantis by a 56–16 margin, and unlike the latest NY Times poll, Trump leads Biden 43–40 in this one. What both polls have in common is a lot of voters who are highly familiar with both Trump and Biden, yet unwilling to declare support for either. This is unsurprising, given that supermajorities are against either man running again when Trump is 78 and Biden is 82.
On January 6, 55 percent claim to be following the January 6 hearings, but how well are the hearings really going for Democrats? Much depends on how you ask the questions, but the trend seems plain enough:
- Fifty-three percent say the hearings are biased, 54 percent say it is mainly a partisan exercise, 63 percent say that Congress should be focusing on other things instead of concentrating on January 6, 67 percent say that the hearings are further dividing the country, and 58 percent say that they are being used as an excuse to silence voices on the political right.
- Fifty-three percent say that Trump deliberately encouraged the Capitol riots, 55 percent say he created a polarized environment that led to the riots, and 52 percent say he bears ultimate responsibility, but 49 percent blame him for directly inciting the crowd rather than it being spontaneous. Fifty-six percent of voters say January 6 was a protest that turned violent, not an armed insurrection, but 61 percent say the riots were pre-planned. Taken together, this is a reasonably nuanced view: This wasn’t a plotted, armed coup, but it was something more than just a protest that got out of hand, and Trump fed it without necessarily directly inciting it.
On the overturning of Roe v. Wade, 72 percent say they are following the story, and 55 percent say they oppose the decision. But digging deeper, the voters oppose what Roe actually did:
- Only 25 percent want the Supreme Court deciding abortion law, as opposed to 44 percent who say the state legislatures and 31 percent who say Congress. Forty-nine percent want abortion banned after six weeks or allowed only in cases of rape and incest; the Mississippi 15-week ban is approved by 72 percent. In short, three-quarters of the voters approve of both who the Court said should decide, and what the Court let happen.
- Sixty-three percent of voters see the Court as legitimate, and 59 percent say it is wrong for Democrats to call it illegitimate. Sixty-two percent don’t want people to be allowed to protest outside the justices’ houses, and 49 percent want the protesters arrested. The Court’s net favorability of +8 beats not only that of the president (-19), the leaders of Congress, or any other individual, but also the favorability of the institutions of Congress (-35), the Republican Party (-10), or the Democratic party (-20). But the Court still doesn’t compete with the military (+67), the cops (+43), or Amazon.com (+56).
- Voters are perfectly divided on the electoral impact of the Court’s ruling: Thirty-six percent say it makes them more likely to vote Republican, 36 percent more likely to vote Democrat, and 29 percent say it won’t affect their vote. Of course, most of the first two groups were probably voting that way anyway.